


Consonant/Dissonant

by womanaction



Series: Perfect Fifth AU [2]
Category: The Big Bang Theory (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-14 05:17:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11201250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: Sheldon finds himself and home. Penny figures things out. Pair of character studies associated with "Perfect Fifth," an AU from the pilot. Repost from FFN; originally published in 2012.





	1. Consonant

She isn't ready.

Penny recognizes that lurching feeling in her stomach all too well. She's sitting at another audition, the fifth (sixth?) in a week and a half. After years of this cycle, she's grown accustomed to that sense of not being good enough, but it doesn't mean she likes it.

Honestly, she's tried changing. She wants nothing more than to find her place, to finally move forward from where her feet have been glued. But she's always staring at that script in her hands, eyes lazing over words she's memorized eight times over.

Sometimes she screws up. Skips a couple words, loses her place; drops an accent; mind goes totally blank. Sometimes she does perfectly, and she feels like she deserves an award, but the casting directors never seem to think she deserves any more than sleazy pick up lines and attempts to peek up her skirt.

Her name is called. Penny rises, straightens her skirt, and walks forward, like she hasn't already given up on this audition and all the ones after it.

She's a damn good actress.

* * *

 

The first time she finds out that she's a good actress, she's in a play in third grade. She gets the part she wanted, and not just because she's got pretty blonde hair or because her family's lived on that farm for four generations. She gets it because she's good at something.

For weeks, she's dancing on air. Her brain might as well have been made of cotton candy. Penny has found her heaven on earth.

That sound of applause is better than any drug she could imagine, even when she's trying them all in high school. She can always remember the taste of that first performance, remember the way her hands shook as she took her bow. The sheer adrenaline.

She wastes most of her twenties trying to replicate that experience, that incredible high.

* * *

 

Penny will never forget that incredible high the first time she walked down that high school hall, her stomach squirming. To her surprise, the boys—even the  _juniors_ —gape and grin at her. "She's something," they breathe.

In her family, being something really meant  _something_. She isn't just a fade-into-the-background girl. Oh, no. Penny is a spotlight stealer.

She revels in the feeling day after day. It doesn't matter that she brings home Bs and Cs that soon drop to Ds and Fs. Her parents look over it with a smile. After all, she's a girl, a pretty blonde girl. She's not meant to get by on intelligence.

Finally, she lets go that feeling of unworthiness. That insecurity that had plagued her for years as report card after report card read something to this effect:

"If she would try, she could really be something, but Penny isn't interested in the work."

They didn't know that she  _did_  try. She kept that a secret but now, in that glorious high of high school, she doesn't have to try any longer. It's enough to be a set of nice legs and a charming smile, enough to be the queen of popularity.

So she basks in her own sunlight for awhile.

* * *

 

Her first real boyfriend is named Jack, and he is everything she's ever wanted. Privately, she calls him her sunshine; her little patch of California in the midst of bland Nebraska.

Penny's always wanted to go there. California, that is. The land of the (pop) stars and the sea. Her parents gently laugh at this dream every time she brings it up. "Sweetie, you're too young."

"You're too precious to us."

"You're too pretty. It would be dangerous."

Secretly, she thinks they mean that she can't do it. She isn't responsible. She can't control herself. Even more secretly, she thinks that they might be right.

She settles for just kissing Jack in the back of his pickup truck, but she doesn't let go of her dreams. They cross her mind every time his light stubble brushes her cheek. Her heart leaps, and she's not sure if it's at the thought of his bright green eyes or those Hollywood lights.

Penny decides that it doesn't matter.

* * *

 

Sometimes Penny feels like it should bother her that Sheldon's so different, but it doesn't really matter. She can't bring herself to care.

Every time that one of her silly friends laughs at something he says (that wasn't  _really_  meant to be funny) or asks her covertly "Is this guy for real?", she remembers the earnest look in those blue eyes. That absolute trust that he has in her.

She just smiles that big Nebraska smile and says, "As real as the Higgs-Boson."

None of them ever know what she's talking about, but that doesn't matter, either.

It's easier to see what  _does_  matter. The gifts he gives her—and not just for "Saturnalia", either. Sheldon does not give easily or naturally, so for him to willingly give her so much of his time, attention...

So much of his love.

Well, it almost defies understanding. She nearly giggles at herself. Her boyfriend must be rubbing off on her. "Oh well," Penny sighs aloud, eyes lighting up like a firework high in the sky. "It must be love."

* * *

"Love is patient," she reads, eyes flitting over a friend's Facebook status. Penny snorts and tosses her long blonde hair. She's been growing it out, and it looks pretty good if she says so herself. "Whoever wrote this obviously never dated Sheldon Cooper." She clicks out of the window and spins around in her chair.

It isn't like she's unhappy with her life. In fact, she's the happiest she's ever been. Her job is awesome—and flexible, which is great because she never has to miss Halo Night. She's making more money than she's ever seen before, and she's doing what she loves. To say that Penny is unhappy would be a boldfaced lie. She's exuberant about her life and the possibilities.

She's just maybe a little fed up with her S.O. at the moment. And who wouldn't be, if you'd been dating for years and consistently dropped hints about finally wanting to settle down and the stupid brilliant genius kept refusing to pop the question?

Nobody, that's who.

She'd never pegged herself for the marrying type. Not that she had expected to stay single forever, but just that she'd never thought she'd be one of those girls practically doing a jig from anxiety. She'd known several in her time: the kind of girl who had her wedding planned out from the time she was fifteen, right down to the monogrammed napkins. Nope, not Penny. Her dreams involved fame and fortune, and maybe a few male models, too.

But things were different now. She can't help but want that last thing, the final piece of  _him_  to have and to hold. Hey, she was allowed to be a little bit ABC-Family-movie now and then.

She glances back down at her desk (working at home rocks more than she could have ever expected) and frowns. A Post-It note is stuck to her untouched coffee mug, which she only now notices is even there. On it, in plain but careful writing:

"Penny, I would like to cordially invite you to dinner tonight. Dress is semi-formal. You may find it advisable to convey your camera, as well. If you have expended your batteries, replacements may be found in the third drawer of your desk, counting from the top. Sheldon Cooper, PhD."

She snatches it up and grins. Now this is the kind of thing she's been waiting for.

* * *

Penny takes a deep breath. She's gotta do this right—it's the thing she's been waiting for, well, pretty much forever. This is the one test that she really studied for. She's got a lot on the line.

When she steps out of the DMV, shaking her brand spanking new drivers' license, she could almost cry for joy. Penny's head is spinning, and she's a little dizzy—in the good way, like the buzzed-after-a-couple-drinks way instead of drunk-off-her-ass. It's exhilarating, it's freeing, it's redeeming, it's every other positive word she learned in English Lit that she can dredge up from her mind.

Tonight, the road is hers.

From this moment on, she can't be restrained. Penny is no longer a caged animal, bound to routine and expectations. She runs toward the transformation and embraces it, slipping out her window every night and going where she pleases.

She kind of understands why the coyotes howl. It's like a celebration. At this profound thought, she pushes back her hair and just drives.

It's such a relief to just  _be_.

* * *

It takes a while, but when it happens it's incredible. Penny is sitting on the couch in 4A, as calm as can be, and suddenly a wave of relief washes over her. She nearly chokes on the feeling. "This is home," she says, not even realizing that her thoughts are out loud.

All of the boys turn to her with quizzical expressions. Sheldon is the first to speak. "No, you live in the other apartment."

She shakes her head fervently. "No, no, no. I mean…California is home. And you guys are home."

They look blank.

"I just…thought it was important to say," she mumbles, feeling kind of silly. A strand of hair falls into her face. Sheldon brushes it away with surprising tenderness.

Leonard gives her a smile, and within seconds so do Raj and Howard. "I'm glad," Leonard tells her earnestly.

They settle back into their respective seats and get on with their lives.

* * *

She is so ready.

Penny doesn't recognize this feeling. It's somewhere between butterflies and falling in love, between a high and an accomplishment. She's got kind of both. It's her first interview, but she has a good feeling about it.

They call her up and talk. The interviewer is male, late forties. Maybe a couple of years ago she would have tried to get away with flirting her way into the job, but she's above that. Instead, she coolly hands him the resumé. His eyes scan it quickly.

"Well, Ms—"

"You can call me Penny," she says pleasantly.

"Penny," he corrects. "I think we'd be thrilled to have you on as manager. To be honest, I already had you in mind. I saw that play you directed a couple of months ago, from Lady Macbeth's perspective? Very impressive."

"Thank you."

She means it, and when she bounces out of the interview she's nearly giddy. Penny fumbles her phone out of her purse and texts her boyfriend.

"got the job!"

The response is quick.

"The additional exclamation points are redundant. Congratulations, Penny. I'm hardly surprised."

She smothers a smile and slams the car door. It's nice to be more than an actress.


	2. Dissonant

It's a well known fact that Sheldon Cooper doesn't pray. A principle of his, in fact. He reasons that there is no evidence in favor of any sort of deity or higher power, and even if there were, it would be absurd to imagine that this god would take a personal interest in human affairs. He has explained this concept to his mother many a time; she only ever shakes her head, cups his cheek, and tells him that she's praying for him.

When Sheldon gets that call—

"Excuse me, sir, you are listed as an emergency contact for Penny—"

"Penny? Where is she? What has happened?"

"There's been an accident, sir."

—he doesn't hesitate to drive to the hospital and fix himself at her bedside. When they say she might not wake, he closes his eyes and grips her hand.

And, principles be damned, he prays.

* * *

 

He prays often, even though most of the literature he keeps tucked away claims it's unscientific. Sheldon is an independent thinker, and he's also an eleven-year-old boy who chooses to believe what his mother tells him.

Mostly, he prays about his father: for his health, for his temperament. He prays that someday, he'll get to see that look of pride he's always imagined on his father's face.

Meemaw says that a prayer is like a little package, wrapped up and sends to heaven. He wraps up all of his complicated thoughts and feelings, all of his theories and dreams, and sends them up to heaven. Sometimes he even hears back.

Within the year, he dismisses it all. If there was a god, one that could hear the prayers of the people, his father wouldn't have died. At the very least, he would have had the good grace to forgive his son for his brilliance first.

Whenever he's tempted to pray from that point on, he stops himself and loses himself in a book. Any book is fine, so long as it is more equation than description. Sheldon loves the feeling of losing those emotional connections and becoming pure numbers, a simple machine.

* * *

 

It's a simple machine, but he admires it so. Sheldon grips the calculator in his hands, enjoying the cold feeling against his skin. Sometimes he uses it when he doesn't need to, if just to savor the way it works through so efficiently.

These are the days when he wishes he wasn't cursed with emotions. He hates sitting through another fight, feeling the angry words vibrate through the floorboards. If only he could eradicate the silly things that keep him from being like the calculator. Pure, clean, brilliant white despite the fact he carries it with him everywhere.

No matter how much he scrubs at his skin, he can't rub off the memories. Sheldon can't clean off the feeling of never being adequate in his father's eyes, of disapproving stares and "hmphs" and, once, of a bottle narrowly missing his pale neck as he scurried away.

If only he didn't have emotions, he wouldn't love his father through all of that. Love was the worst of them all—it hurt so much more than hate.

* * *

 

What hurts the most is that irredeemable bubble of hope. He remembers it well.

The first day of college, he walks in, all eleven years of him, full of the same kind of hope. Sheldon is finally away from his family and the classmates who mocked him constantly. University—the very thought gives him shivers of the best kind.

It is not only the academic stimulation he looks forward to, but the meeting of similar minds. He does not pretend that there will be students of his IQ, per se, but they will at least be more advanced than the East Texas simpletons from his home.

He even treasures the idea of finding a Platonic soulmate. Sheldon has often dreamed of this, finding a Sam to his Frodo, a Kirk to his Spock. The anticipation is almost painful.

Sheldon arrives at the classroom half an hour before the beginning of class, and spends half of that time finding the perfect seat. The seats surrounding him begin to fill up as time passes, but the two on either side of him stay empty until nearly the last second.

"Hello," he says pleasantly, to the scruffy man on his right.

The man gives him a quick once-over and sighs. "What are you, some freaky genius? You don't belong here, kid."

* * *

 

Sheldon used to wonder if he'll ever belong anywhere. Always last picked, "sticking out like a sore thumb" (as his mother would say), nose glued to a book full of equations that others could only shake their heads at. He has no peers.

Slowly, he had found home, piece by piece, but he hadn't quite found his heart until this moment.

Penny wraps her arms around him and whispers a congratulations. Her scent is intoxicating, to say the least: vanilla and green apple. Sheldon can't make himself keep believing that it's mere physiology attracting him to her. That theory is insufficient.

Physiology does not begin to explain why she would make impassioned speeches about him, nor why he would feel so inspired by her words. Physiology could not possibly explain his rush of unpleasant emotions whenever she declined an offer to stay longer or had a negative experience.

The conclusion is obvious, then. It must be love.

* * *

 

Love. What an absurd syllable for an absurd feeling. He ponders it again, marveling at how it can still catch him by surprise after fifteen years of marriage.

It is early morning, and the sunlight is just barely peeking through the window. Penny is next to him, arms draped over his chest like extra sheets. Her toes bob out from underneath the blanket; he sighs, but does not risk waking her to cover them. She sighs gently in her sleep and shifts closer. Tenderly, he slips his arm back around her sleeping body.

Sheldon supposes that this is what one would call an ordinary pleasure, but to him it has never ceased to be extraordinary. Marriage is much more his pace than the whirlwind torture of courtship, as enjoyable as theirs had been. Here was the time for routine, for peace, and for simple joys.

He sniffs. Perhaps the long-term relationship is forcing him to wax philosophical. That is unacceptable. Still, maybe he was only feeling sentimental because it was their wedding anniversary, although his "blushing bride" (he had never quite understood that term) was still in Stage 2 sleep.

Sheldon allows his own eyes to drift closed, although he retains his full clarity of thought and alertness. He had never been one to enjoy change in any form, but the past fifteen (or 17.6, if one desired to include the courtship period) years had been both transformative and enjoyable.

Change, he grants silently, is not entirely negative after all.

* * *

 

Change is, to put it in a manner simply juvenile, the worst.

Every week for at least eight months, Sheldon has worn his favorite shirt. It is the first item of clothing that he was allowed to buy for himself (Meemaw gave him the money), and he has treasured it accordingly. It is a plain enough item: a white shirt emblazoned with the Superman insignia. His mother had never bought superhero clothing for him, so this is more than simply a first sign of independence. It is a marker of coming into himself.

Eventually, as frequently worn clothes are wont to do, it obtains a small hole. He is almost shocked. Time, activity, and his mother's fierce scrubbing only worries the hole until there is nearly more hole than shirt.

His mother approaches him on Favorite Shirt Day. "Shelly," she says, in that tone that both irritates and terrifies him. "It's time for that shirt to go."

Thursdays are not the same.

After a couple of weeks of "moping" (her term), his mother finally relents and purchases a new shirt. This article is almost exactly the same as the previous shirt, but it is one size longer and colored black.

He hates it.

* * *

 

"Did you hate him?"

His mother asks the question gently, but Sheldon hears the barely disguised lecture getting ready to pounce. It's okay, though, because he does not need to lie. "No," he says, with absolute honesty.

There were people he hated: the kind of people who made fun of superheroes or disdained science or (most of all) teased and chased him down the road. This comprises most of the people he has met, so it would not be inaccurate to say that he hates a lot of people. Still, his father was never one of them.

The man had at times infuriated and terrified him, but beneath that Sheldon had always kept a certain sense that his father was human, even if he was loathe to claim a relation to the drunk who threw empty beer bottles at his mother's head. No, he did not hate his father (although if he had, he could not comprehend why that would have changed at the man's death).

His mother nods seriously and looks at him with an unreadable expression. Not for the first time, he wishes that he were more adept in the art of nonverbal communication. He merely blinks in reply.

"You're telling the truth," she observes after a minute.

His voice cracks when he replies, "I always do."

* * *

Sheldon almost always tells the truth. He can't really afford not to—he gives it away too easily, and constructing the kind of lie necessary to keep a secret covered up is simply too dangerous. So when Penny's father asks him rather harshly what his intentions are, he is obligated to tell him the truth.

"I intend to cosplay with her every year at Comic-Con and to listen to her even when I don't care. I plan to win the Nobel prize within two years and to thank her for her help—not with the actual work, of course, but with 'keeping me sane', as they say. I will continue our tradition of taking care of each other when we're sick so long as she always sings me 'Soft Kitty', I'll marry her, and I'll never allow her to operate a motor vehicle or any heavy machinery when she is inebriated."

Remembering his Texas manners, Sheldon hastily adds, "Sir."

The other man takes a second to absorb this.

"Marriage was in there somewhere, right?"

He inclines his head.

"Well…okay, then." Her father considers this. "Penny married. I was starting to think I'd never see the day. Of course, you didn't say that she'd agreed yet."

"Oh, she will," Sheldon laughs.

The man raises his eyebrows.

Sheldon changes the subject.

* * *

 

It's a well known fact that Sheldon Cooper doesn't pray, but Penny is an exception as she is to his every rule. She gets better (so does he), but he can never erase from his memory the visual of her body limp on that hospital bed.

She's changed him, and he isn't blind enough to let that past him, but he finds himself surprisingly adaptable. Perhaps change is not always negative—but he certainly won't deviate from his routine any time soon.

So he thinks, but it's less than a year later when they're back at the hospital, this time for a very different reason. He is a wreck up until and through the moment that he holds that human infant in his arms.

"This is home," Sheldon says quietly, and Penny just smiles.

His principles may have changed, too. Quietly, silently, to some indistinct idea of deity up above, he prays.


End file.
